Veteran actor Sir Ian Mckellen thinks about death daily and has even fitted an elevator in his home to accommodate him when he is too weak to walk.

The X-Men star, who turns 74 next month (May13), is coming to terms with his mortality and making preparations in his east London house to help him with old age.

He tells Britain's Radio Times, "Do I think about death? Yes, every day. People of our age, when we get together, talk about decrepitude all the time. We know we've got our lives behind us now.

"Friends keep dying, or get very ill. I've got a lot of young friends - that's how I bolster myself against the inevitable. I've just arranged my house so that I'll still be able to live in it when I can't walk, so now there's a lift in it."

Meanwhile, Sir Derek Jacobi, MCKellen's co-star in new U.K. Tv comedy Vicious, insists he plans to continue working despite his 75th birthday looming later this year (13).

He adds, "I still feel like a teenager. But I do think about what happens next. I'll be 75 in October. If I'm lucky I've got another 10 years of good work in me. I might not. I have intimations of mortality now that I didn't before. I'm aware of the last act. The interval was over a long time ago. It only ends one way."